chris conway filk page

My song The Alien Jellyfish Song won a Filk Gold Sam Award at the UK Filk Convention Con2bil8. Sam Awards are the Oscars of UK Filk and I am honoured that this is my 5th Sam Award since I went to my first filk convention in 2000.

I couldn't be there at the award ceremony, some of the the wonderful Play It With Moxie band from Atlanta USA played it for me - they play the song at their GaFilk Convention banquet nights where they even have a dance for the song :-)

I had a 1 hour set on Friday night - It went OK, - room was a bit hot and I got a bit foggy so dropped the odd stitch, and I wouldve liked to have been a bit more relaxed, but hey. I tried to mix old, new, mellow and funny etc... I debuted my new silly Trek filk Make It Not So.
In filk circles over the weekend I also debuted my new song Journey's End, and I sang Vegetarian Vampire.

Set - Andromeda Bound, Superheroes Never Die, Lifespell, Make It Not So, Damned, Wicken Chicken flutes, Love Space Station, Out Of The Blue, Ten Years, Alien Salad Abduction, Three Headed Girl - encore The Fish Song

 

I have been invited to be International Anniversary Filk Guest at the 5th DFDF Filk Convention in Bad Salzdetfurth, June 2013.
I've known for about a year and had to keep it a secret - when the time came when I was safe to annnounce it - i was busy and forgot!!
Awesome - what a great honour! -
Plus my first filk guest gig in many years and my first gig out of the country for even longer... and a chance to see my German filk chums :-)

Alien Salad Abduction CD - Electrofilkadelic album - for more about it go here

So what's in it for filk fen?
1. Guests on The Alien Jellyfish Song - Urban Taprestry
2. Jodi Krangle guests on 2 other songs
3. Andrea Dale makes a brief appearance on interstellar telephone
4. Echoes has lyrics by Nicky Retallick
5. Christo's theremin appears on 7 tracks
6. Christo's first dedicated filk album
7. and seventhly
8. 16 tracks of cosmic songs
9. did I mention the theremin? Oh yes, so I did

Chris Conway - Live ! CD - for more about it go here

So what's in it for filk fen?
1. Recorded live at 2 UK Filk conventions - Didgeridouze and Conthirteena
2. CC sings 2 songs by famous filkers - one by Talis Kimberley and 1 by Andrea Dale
3. Replicator Malfunction Blues - a DS9 filk not aavailable on any other album.
4. Fab live sound and lively filker audience
5. and fifthly
6. 4 bonus studio tracks

Confluence setlist
1. Alien Salad Abduction
2. Andromeda Bound - with Jodi Krangle
3. Long Days Waiting - kalimba
4. Science Fiction Eyes
5. Star Trek Theme - jazz piano version
5. Monkeys on the Moon - piano
6. Age of Miracles
7. Rainbow Real - twin whistles
8. Green Clothes
9. Wonder - with Jodi Krangle
10. Three Headed Girl
- with Urban Tapestry, Mary Bertke, Andrea Dale, & ?
11. The Alien Jellyfish Song - with Urban Tapestry

encore
11. Islands

in the circle
Orbital Filk Recording Studio - USA version

16Tones UK Filk Con report - as UK Guest of Honour
Great Con - more fun than a bag of cats. Lots of lovely people, some great music - easy-going con. photos below

Cool things that happened from a playing perspective were...
1. CC played a 90 minute concert
2. CC won a Sam Award for his song Orbital Filk Recording Studio. (a Sam is the UK filk Oscar) in the silly song catagory
3. he played 7 songs new to most UK filkers - in circleshe performed 2 songs by Country Joe McDonald he has never sung before.
4. he performed Skyrider from the Alien Salad Abduction CD which has neve rbeen performed before.
5. Katy Dröge sang lead vocal on Islands !
6. on Three Headed Girl he was accompanied by Mich Sampson, Katy Dröge & Marilisa Valtazanou who were awesome in the title role
7. CC ran his first theremin workshop
8. a CC song was filked for the 1st time - by Brain Biddle who filked Alien Salad Abduction as Alien Salad Invasion - very funny!
9. CC sold 24 CDs at the con, and a further 35 to the Tales from the White Hart stall to sell in the USA

The gig
All went pretty well - only annoyances were me switching off my guitar on Take Me Away - what a fool! And forgetting some lines on Wonder (doh!) - Stilll the rest worked fine and it was lovely having Katy sing Islands, my VERY new song Orbital Recording Engineer I had to read but it went down well and in the end won a SAM Award for silly song. *blush* - I really enjoyed 3 Headed Girl with the 3 girls singing and being the 3 headed girl. - and 3 other being my 3 headed daughter of the song ! Melusine had given me a fun pink alien jellyfish which came in very handy on one song!
Finished around 12.30 - whoosh !. I wasn't much use for much else that night? it went as well as it coulda and the audience were wonderful :-)

All in all? Not very relaxing for me but a great con. Sold some CDs thanks to the Whittakers and especially to the Sands who bought many up front to sell in the states. Nice for me to catch up with Sibylle who I hadn't seen in ages. Also Jana arrived Sat - it was nice to catch up. Also cool to see Alexa and meet her man Soenke & son Juri. Also Shaya & Pug. Katy & Ju of course - always such a delight to chat with them - got their new CD too - go get yours!!!
I didn't have much time for quality chats chatting to many others unfortunately -
I wish I'd had a bit more energy - the mild bug, the air conditioning and nervousness effected me more than I'dve liked. Sorry to those to whome I appeared vacant.

Well done to the Con Com - a seamless mellow con, and I'm thrilled to bits to've been the UK Guest of Honour, to be filked for the 1st time, and with my Sam Award !

16Tones Setlist
1 Alien Salad Abduction
2 Science Fiction Eyes
3 Long Days Waiting - kalimba
4 Monkeys on the moon - pno
5 Take me away
6 Stormy Point
7 Islands - lead sung by Katy Dröge
8 Orbital Filk Recording Studio

1 Skyrider - vocals & harmonizer
2 Andromeda Bound - gtr & vocals & harmonizer
3 Green Clothes - pno
4 The Answer - piano
5 Star Trek theme - theremin
6 Deep in the Bowels of the Ship - theremin & fx improv
7 Wonder
8 Three Headed Girl - with Mich, Marilisa , & Katy
9 Alien Jellyfish Song - keyboards -

songs sung in filk circles
UFO - gtr - Country Joe McDonald song
Space Patrol - gtr Country Joe McDonald song
The Age of Aquarius - kbd
Nobody Loves Me (Like I Do)
Forget About You

January 04
Atlanta - GaFilk Report !
Christo played at - GaFilk - the Georgia Filk Convention in January 2004

Cool things that happened were...
1. seeing so many old pals - CC hadn't seen Jodi Krangle & Debbie Ridpath Ohi for 4 years

2. meeting so many new ones - Mary Crowell & CC had been in email contact for quite a while but met for the 1st tiem at GaFilk - also a thrill to meet and hear the Three Weird Sisters and Echoes Children, & Ookla The Mok guys Rand & Adam, and Bill Roper. And countless others...

3. Christo played a 30min concert slot on the Friday - see photos

4. CC was joined by Jodi Krangle on Wonder and by Jodi & Debbie also from Urban Tapestry on The Alien Jellyfish Song

5. The Alien Jellyfish Song was included the GaFilk Songbook thanks to notation of the song by Mary Crowell.

6. Jodi , Mary Crowell & jazz band performed The Alien Jellyfish Song at the big banquet on Sat night - everyone danced !

7. CC played low whistle on 1 song on Guest of Honour, Mich Sampson's set

8. Keyboard Thing item - Christo, Mary Crowell, Mich Sampson, Dave Ruud, Blake Hodgetts - all on keyboards - CC sang 2 songs and accompanied others and jammed.

9. CC sold 48 CDs